


Staying Afloat

by SignificantOtter



Series: Hold With the Hare, Run With the Hound [3]
Category: Zootopia (2016)
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-06
Updated: 2016-06-09
Packaged: 2018-07-12 15:04:52
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 16,761
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7110505
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SignificantOtter/pseuds/SignificantOtter
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>An old friend offers Nick and Judy the chance to explore other lines of work.</p><p>Also featured: literal boatloads of animal puns.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks, as always, to Sunquistadora for being my betareader/editor!
> 
> If you haven't read the first two parts of the series, you should still be just fine. But for those who have been reading since the beginning: thanks! Suffice to say, I did not anticipate writing three pun-ridden novellas in the span of two months.

Judy tried not to lose Nick in the cacophonous, musk-drenched crowds. To one side of the jam-packed side street, just inside an otherwise empty cafe, a crowd of camels hovered intently over a chess board as one of their mates duked it out with a fennec fox that could have been Finnick’s grandfather. Just next to them, a hyena gently reclined a dhole in his barber chair, and applied a gentle oil massage all over the submissive muzzle. Nick had often sang the praises of the barber shops in Sahara Square, as much for the canid camaraderie as for the unmatchable furcare.

Judy turned back, and just barely caught sight of Nick’s russet tail rounding a corner in the warren of streets. She hustled after him, smoothly darting through the legs of a pair of giraffes engaged in a round of performative haggling over a fine Purrsian rug. She nonchalantly matched Nick’s pace as she caught up alongside him and Ursula, but he glanced down smugly at her all the same.

“We’ve come here a dozen times. How do we almost lose you each time?” Nick teased, as he plodded confidently forwards.

“You’ve locked yourself in the pantry, back in the burrows,” Judy reminded him. She’d found him the morning after his woebegone midnight snack, curled up on a sack of potatoes and using a bag of kale as a pillow. “Twice.”

“And each time, those berries were only a few days away from spoiling,” the fox rebutted. “I sacrificed myself for the greater good. And here we are!” He ambled to one side of the pedestrian maze, and took up a position just a few steps shy from another side street. A steady stream of Zootopians came and went, their arms saddled with both old-fashioned paper goods and precious Ember e-readers, the minuscule brass street sign for “Silkworm Road” looming unassumingly over most of their heads.

“I don’t know where to start, Nick.” Ursula took a long glance down the jam-packed marketplace, the scent of aging paperbacks mingling with the dry desert air, her baby molerat magically unconscious on her back. The wombat pushed down a sudden mental image of Octavia engaging in projectile vomit target practice with a rare first edition. “Do they have a section for vehicle manuals?” She’d been going a bit stir crazy at home, and had impulsively bought a potentially fabulous Hornet motorcycle off TreeBay as a fixer-upper. The sidecar made for a very tempting cradle.

“I have a few ideas,” Nick assured her. He’d long ago sussed out the more obscure corners of Zootopia’s chaotic book bazaar - colloquially known as ‘The Thread’ - but he couldn’t have explained the directions to Ursula if he’d tried. “Any other requests from the peanut gallery?”

“Hadley asked about the biography of Brian Teanose,” Judy recalled. “And anything by Dugless Antsome. And albums by the Meowri Volcanics.” Beyond those very specific instructions, Hadley trusted Nick and Judy’s music tastes as far as she could throw them (five feet, give or take).

“Nerd lit and obscure music, got it. Anyone else?”

“ _Mousewood Cookbooks_ for Dad,” Judy said, consulting the tiny, bullet-pointed list she’d retrieved from her breast pocket. “And anything about Gazelle, Janelle Moray, and Amy Vinehouse for Ben.”

“Oh, firedamp!” Ursula said excitedly. “And Viktoria Modnesta, while you’re at it.”

“Mammals, we have our orders.” Nick clicked his heels and flashed a stone-faced salute in Judy’s direction. “See you on the other side,” he intoned solemnly, as Ursula rolled her eyes and barreled without further ado into the teeming throng, Octavia drooling gently onto one of her shoulders. Judy, in contrast, flashed a salute of her own, with perfect academy posture. She stared back at Nick, daring him to drop the act first.

One minute later, with neither of them budging, Nick walked slowly backwards into the market, until he was eventually swallowed by the crowd. With both parties entirely unwilling to admit defeat, they both held the salute and their eye contact until the other entirely disappeared from view.

Finally freed from the dorky staredown, Judy ambled slowly through the slow-motion bookworm stampede. When they’d started discussing moving in together, Judy had had no choice but to inveigh upon Nick about the disproportionate amount of floor space taken up by his bookshelves. He hadn’t been too keen on getting rid of some books altogether, but together they’d hit upon a compromise: Nick had turned a portion of his collection into a lending library at the ZPD. It had honestly worked out much better than they expected; Judy had recently spotted a warthog bail bondsmammal who’d sequestered herself in a corner of the break room, as she intently turned another page in Nick’s copy of _Animal Farm: The Reign of Pol Potbelly_.

But now, Judy took advantage of her alone time to browse the labyrinth of shops nearly at random. The Thread ran for a solid mile through the northeast side of Sahara Square, between Hump St. and Sandy Ridge, with little tributaries of smaller-scale booksellers branching off the whole way along. She still couldn’t even begin to wrap her head around the sheer volume of material and subject matter condensed in one dogeared square mile. To one side, she saw a camel hand back a new copy of _Sumerkin_ by Amane Mafloof to a satisfied-looking red panda; on the other, she saw two stoic polar bears operating out of a refrigerated trailer, their eyes misting over as they discussed the recent memoir of Vladimir Volesodsky’s widow.

She emerged two hours later on the other side; at least once you actually _found_ The Thread, you could follow it from beginning to end. She saw Ursula, resting amicably in a tiny kebug shop, dutifully supplying Octavia with her afternoon feeding; Judy ordered a to-go cup of julep mint tea before joining her. She waved a wide-eyed hello at the suckling molerat, who looked at her with the rabid indifference that only sociopathic infants can muster.

“Any luck?” Ursula hefted her child over one shoulder and gave her a firm pat. Octavia burped on cue like a professional bassoonist.

“Two cookbooks for Dad, and something for Mom,” Judy said. She laid out her score onto the table. Martha Stoat’s smiling face stared out from her bestselling book on stock tips, _Outsider Trading_. “What about you?”

“No luck on the motorcycle front. Got a few things that Yoshi will appreciate, as soon as I’m through with them.” She was actually super jazzed about _Hunting Metal: The Search for Sabertoothian Meteorite Craters_. “Did find something for Emilie, though.” The wombat held up a copy of a book that Judy also didn’t recognize: _Hothide Possum_.

“Sounds steamy,” Judy surmised.

“In a sense.”

“It’s worth a read,” Nick said as he approached Judy from behind, bending down to land a kiss at the base of one ear. As always, his Trader Doe’s satchel sagged from the day’s purchases. Half of those better be for Hadley, Judy thought apprehensively.

“Tell me you came through for me, Nick.” Ursula returned Octavia to her preferred, snugly-secured position atop Mount Mama.

“Your lack of confidence wounds me, madam.” With a flourish, Nick extended one closed paw above the table, and slowly unfurled. “Voilà.”

Judy and Ursula both leaned in, perplexed. Resting comfortably in the center of his paw with room to spare, a fraction of an ounce of Hornet 3 Paw Flyer motorcycle owner’s manual sank a millimeter into Nick’s fur. The vole-sized book measured maybe a half-inch on each side, and a quarter-inch thick. Her eyes straining to make out the title, Judy couldn’t quite decide if this made Nick the best kind of friend, or the worst. Most likely both.

“Thank you,” Ursula told him flatly, without blinking. “If I ever blow an axle on one of the game pieces in _Muttopoly_ , I’ll let you know.”

“One more stop,” Nick informed her chipperly. He strolled out of the cafe and down the street without another word of explanation. Judy and Ursula looked at each other, shrugged hopelessly, and lumbered after him. Neither of them knew how to get out of here without him.

Taking a turn onto one of the side streets near the exit of the market, Nick stopped in front of what, improbably, appeared to be a electronic parking meter. This seemed especially odd considering that they weren’t actually on a street with any vehicles, and that the meter itself seemed to have been uprooted from elsewhere and then cemented to the ground at the base. In neon orange letters at the top of the parking meter, placed indelicately over what would have been the ZTA logo, were the words “Nooks and Cranberries.” With one gentle claw, Nick pressed the “Receive Ticket” button.

Judy could have sworn that she heard the faintest of doorbells, emanating from somewhere inside the meter. A few seconds later, as she and Ursula stole admittedly awed glances at one another, the slot for the ticket printer suddenly sprung open, like a barn door in a stiff breeze.

“Nick,” said the shrew from the balcony within the meter. Standing at eye level, Judy could see a half-dozen other rodents before him at their well-lit desks; she spotted one dormouse wheeling over a trolley of books to a waiting elevator. “How’s my twelfth favorite customer?”

“Last month I was your eleventh!” Nick protested, with a hint of genuine distress. “What happened, Jimmy?”

“I don’t like that tie,” the rodent explained.

“It’s royal paisley. And you’re colorblind.”

“I don’t like the silhouette.” The shrew stuck out an impatient paw. “You want it scanned, audio…?”

Nick glanced over at Ursula inquiringly. The wombat looked a little caught off-guard, because she was.

“Scanned?” She requested, shrugging innocently. “I can’t imagine vehicle manuals make for good listening.”

“Good, because we have a backlog at the print shop if you wanted it wombat-sized.” They did a lot of audio books as well, and you would never even suspect that many of the narrators’ normal voices were nigh-inaudible squeaks; the invention of MammalTune had allowed even the most high-pitched audio book reader to sound like Beary White. On the ground-floor, Judy watched as another shrew exited the back door of the meter, her throat stinging from doing voices for multiple characters; she’d just finished narrating ten chapters of Hairy Pitbear smut, and she needed a stiff drink.

Nick handed over the book, which was the last any of them would ever see of it; Nooks would just return it to the seller after they were done, and the process would start over next week, like a beautiful cycle of bespoke literary services. Nick was in the process of wiring them the scanning fee via PayPaw as Jimmy wheeled out his complimentary berry, when Judy heard a familiar voice squeak adorably from behind her:

“Officer Hopps?” it said. “Bless you, bunny! Is that you?”

Judy spun around, her face glowing at the sight of the picture-perfect _Lutra_ family. “Mrs. Otterton!” Judy squealed, bringing the sleek sweetheart into a ginger hug. Emmitt and their two boys stood alongside her, each shouldering one-third of the weight of what appeared to be an elephant-sized book on pachyderm wedding ceremonies. Judy couldn’t imagine a resizing business like that fitting inside of a busted parking meter.

“Oh, call me Ellen. Ellen Rocheleau Otterton.” Mrs. Otterton appraised Judy fondly, but came to a sudden halt as she glimpsed the web of black, form-fitting plastic peeking out from Judy’s left shirt cuff. “Oh!” she squeaked with concern. “What on earth happened to you, dear?”

Judy tugged her shirt self-consciously over her cast. “Oh, it’s nothing,” she confessed sheepishly. “Just a work hazard.”

“She fractured her ulna in a pick-up game of Ultimate Fursbee,” Nick explained sweetly, like a douche. “So, technically, she was pursuing a fleeing suspect.”

“Does centrifugal force qualify as resisting arrest?” Ursula added, like a jerk.

“She should get a medal.”

“You know Nick,” Judy mustered, cutting them both off at the pass as Nick gave a marginally excessive bow. “This is Ursula,” she said, as the wombat stole a discreet paw-five from Nick for their moment of witty repartee. “And you can call me Judy.”

“Oh, Judy. It’s been ages!” Ellen stole a glance at her little troopers, patiently holding up fifty pounds of trunk-based floristry. “We just have to get this resized, and then we’re going to Travis’ pebblepush game. And Trevor got a perfect score in his science diving exam, so we’re splitting a jumbo pop afterward!” The eldest Otterton boy blushed from his stalwart position underneath five pounds of appendices. He enjoyed diving and loved his parents - he really did - but it’d still be a few years before he could bring himself to admit to them that what he _really_ wanted was to be a water sommelier.

“That sounds amazing,” Judy said fondly. Of all her and Nick’s cases, the Ottertons would always hold a special place in her heart.

“You should come with us!” Ellen bubbled. Judy glanced in surprise at Nick, who gave an amused shrug at the idea. “Emmitt gets extra tickets! For all the discount corsages he gives out for the Dencoming Dance.”

“I should get back home,” Ursula begged off graciously, “So I can convince my wife that I’m not just a dream she once had.”

“Well…” Judy conceded. “We’ve never been to a game before.”

“It’s settled, then! Oh, this will be so exciting,” Ellen gushed, as the swollen troop continued their march, as Ursula waved her goodbyes and Nick helped to spread the hardcover load even further. “Although it’d be great if we had time to get something to eat before the game.”

“Cricket shawarma?” Nick proposed gamely, to no rebuttal. “Cricket shawarma,” he nodded. “Alf’s Falafels is just around the corner. Best in town.” Nick trudged along, as the happy caboose in the Otterton-Hopps train. “Although the owner _is_ a little weird around cats,” he added, suspiciously.


	2. Chapter 2

The frenzy of hydrodynamic pelts screeched to a halt at the sound of the whistle, and retreated to their starting positions. From their seats poolside, Judy looked on in wonder at the ten by twenty by forty foot pebblepush tank, trying in vain to decipher the rules. There was a flat pebble, a lot of sticks, and two opposing nets on either side. It looked a lot like hockey, if blood was frowned upon for ruining the visibility.

“OK. What just happened?” Judy enquired helplessly to Mrs. Otterton at her side.

“A player on the opposing team got called for bubbling,” Ellen explained. “That’s when they push out the air bubbles from their fur and into the face of another player. It’s not very sporting,” she continued, shaking her head in disapproval. “GO MANTIS SHRIMPS!” she cheered, standing tall on her tiny feet and waving feebly at her son, who was busy pretending that he was a grown mammal whose mother didn’t still do his laundry.

“Those are very colorful uniforms,” Judy remarked diplomatically. She was being circumspect; the fabric for the Mammalgrove Mantis Shrimps was so bright it could have doubled as a cure for Jimmy’s colorblindness. Wielding their stumpy pebble sticks and bedecked in their rainbow shoulder pads, Travis’ team looked like the Knights of the Proud Sable if they’d been reincarnated as apprentice circus clowns.

“Most colorful in the league,” Ellen boasted without reservation. “My father was a painter, both in the shipyard and at home. But the boats were always so drab that he liked to go wild on the canvas,” she reminisced, as Nick and Emmitt returned with their food and drinks. “He once painted a lion portrait with nothing but purple oils and glitter,” as Nick handed Judy her Paws’ Dew Ribbon; Hadley had been a horrible influence.

“Finbits?” Nick offered. The mussle-filling doughnut holes were a staple at Fin Hornton’s, and it didn’t surprise anybody that a place as high-rolling as Otterdam Central High had their own franchise on-site. Judy waved off as Ellen and Emmitt each grabbed a handful. With his other free paw, Nick gently handed Ellen her own microbrew, Bee’s Knees, before retrieving his own Fat Tail. Emmitt seemed perfectly content with his Hide&Kin.

“You sure you don’t want to try any of this?” Ellen offered kindly. “It’s honey stout! Emmitt’s a simple mammal with simple tastes,” she said, glancing lovingly at her husband, who radiated love right back at her. “But I like my drinks so thick I have to chew.”

“Oh, sure!” Judy squeaked charitably. “I read about that in a BuzzFood art…”

“BOO, BOBBIT WORMS! BOOOOO!” Ellen erupted, in response to some juvenile slight that Judy had completely missed. Some of the opposing players on the Otterdam Bobbit Worms smirked knowingly at Travis, who knew full-well that he’d lost his pebble fair and square. He enjoyed pebblepush and loved his parents - he really did - but it’d still be a few years before he could bring himself to admit to them that what he _really_ wanted was to be a frontmammal for a hardcore bloodgrass band, like his heroes in Gwroar.

Ellen handed over her beer with a little smile of apology. “So you both must love reading,” she segued. “That was quite a haul that you two had, and I can’t imagine you have much free time in the ZPD.”

“Well, I’m still out on medical leave for the next two weeks because of this,” Judy explained, waving her cast in explanation. It would have been longer, but Nick had known enough to lobby ZPD to cover the low-intensity ultrasound treatments that sped up bone growth. “But I don’t need any more on my plate at the moment. This one has a library for days,” she said, gesturing to her fox. Nick tried to muster a wide smile over the lip of his Fat Tail, and it did not go as planned; he ended up gently soaking his muzzle in suds, like some kind of amateur.

“Guilty as charged,” Ellen confided happily, her estimation of Nick having just raised considerably. “When Emmitt and I first started dating, we could only consider apartments that had enough shelf space.” Emmitt looked over wordlessly at Nick, and they both nodded knowingly. “Which is a bit harder to come by in the city than out in the Marshlands! But Emmitt runs his shop here in Otterdam, so we split the difference: he commutes to here, and I commute back to the library in the Canal District.”

“You work at a library?” Nick emoted without hesitation. “Bless you,” he said earnestly. “A blessing on your house.”

“THAT WAS CANALWAY ROBBERY!” Ellen bellowed over the heads of a progressively unnerved beaver family. Emmitt looked over to Nick and nodded sympathetically, confirming that Ellen actually had a point this time; Bobbit Worms had a reputation for being mangy. “Have you visited any of the bookstores in the Marshlands?” Ellen asked when she’d finished, soothing her maternal throat with some milky stout.

“I have a hard time getting out of the city, except for this one,” Nick confessed, tugging loosely on Judy’s flannel. “But I’ve got a break from school coming up. Maybe it’s time for a field trip,” he said, glancing appraisingly at his rabbit.

“Sooner rather than later, I’d say,” Ellen cautioned, with a sense of urgency in her voice, stealing a furtive glance to Emmitt, who pursed his lips quietly. “Some of our favorite places in the Marshlands are getting pushed out; lots of mammals are moving further out from the city, but it drives up the housing prices,” Ellen recounted wearily. “We’re very good at reaching a consensus in the Marshlands, but we can’t push back forever.” By the very nature of Zootopia, every district had the semi-sovereign ability to govern their own affairs - you didn’t want Hyenahurst making decisions about iceberg management in Glacial Falls, after all - but no neighborhood was an island. Not even the actual islands.

“I do have some vacation time stored up,” Nick said, thinking out loud. “And anything’s better than riding with McHorn.” He ruffled the fur between Judy’s ears as the Ottertons shared a glance behind both of their backs. Trevor, who up until this point had been off to the side and quietly reading a book on water tables, glanced up instinctively and assessed the look on his parents’ faces. He could see where this was going.

“As a matter of fact…” Ellen began, with practiced delicacy, “We know a bookstore owner who will be out of town for a couple weeks.” She may have been crazy, but Judy could have sworn that she literally heard Nick’s ear muscles perk up like virgin bed springs. “She’s a bit of a water spout, that one. She could have retired ages ago. But these days, she’s still trying to float the Allpupskin Tail, one hundred miles at a time.”

“That’s no small feat,” Nick noted obligingly, his hustle senses tingling.

“That sounds so relaxing,” Judy joined in, trying not to show Nick’s hand.

“Oh, it _is_. Just tie a raft of supplies to your paw and enjoy the scenery,” Ellen marveled, as Judy made a mental note to consider replacing her next Tri-Burrows visit with a leisurely river float. “And this next leg she’s going on has only a dozen or so whitewater rapids,” Ellen noted casually. “It’s easy-peasy.” Judy wiped the mental note clean, then wrote it back in again. Who was she to turn down a challenge?

The crowd erupted, as a Bobbit Worm player stole the pebble mid-pass, shot to the surface, and skipped the pebble along the length of the pool. Right above the Mantis Shrimp goalkeeper, one of her teammates caught the pebble just as it began to sink into the water, and hurled it at a steep vertical angle towards the net. Remarkably, the goalkeeper performed a beautiful barrel roll, and caught the pebble with his tail. Ellen clapped maniacally as Emmitt and Nick looked at one another, with mutually impressed looks on their faces, and clinked their beers together.

The hometown crowd swallowed their disappointment, and Ellen refrained from preening, even though Travis had been nowhere near the action. Mrs. Otterton leaned over towards Nick and Judy, as Nick nursed his Fat Tail and Judy seriously considered becoming an active pebblepush fan.

“Now, I certainly don’t want to impose,” she began. “But might either of you be interested in shopsitting?”


	3. Chapter 3

Mrs. Otterton met up with both of them at Rain Lane, as far north as the ZTA could go; from there, they would have to catch a water taxi up up towards the Outer Marshlands. Nick and Judy walked paw-in-paw down the dock, each carrying a modest overnight bag; Ellen had helpfully suggested that they stay at least one night before deciding to commit to the two-week haul. Ellen then had to clarify that they would be sleeping in the store.

The taxi ride had bordered on the idyllic. As much as Judy appreciated the hustle and bustle of the city, after having already grown up in a loving mosh pit of a bunny burrow, she couldn’t help but marvel at the simple beauty of the immaculately-tended canals as they weaved through the semiaquatic archipelago. Many of the homes wouldn’t have looked out of place in farm country, save for the clean lines of their modern design and the bevy of pontoons and lightweight foundations that kept them afloat. As they plodded upstream, she even spotted a few swamp rabbits as they tended to the lines of thick-rooted shrubbery that strengthened the canal banks, decoratively spotted with rainbow plots of tulips and chrysanthemums.

“Hello, Terry!” Ellen shouted from over the railing of the water taxi, waving giddily towards the shore. “It looks beautiful!” One of the rabbits lifted her head and smiled, laughing. “Good to see you, Ellen!” the rabbit shouted back, standing upright, as Nick wondered if the feeling in his belly was idle nervousness or just a subtle seed of seasickness. “Say hello to your mother for me!” Terry added, bending back over her garden before shrinking from view.

“The Bowmusks are good mammals,” Ellen said to Judy earnestly. Before Judy could comment further, the taxi rounded a bend and Mrs. Otterton grabbed Judy’s paw. “Oh, we’re almost there!” she enthused, pointing happily. Illuminated by the light of the late afternoon sun, Judy and Nick leaned over and took in the sight of a pearl white, double-ended wooden ferry, bobbing almost unnoticeably in its ample berth. Across the stern, painted in beautiful calligraphy, rested the name: “Birchcomber Books.”

The water taxi let off passengers just a couple hundred feet before the ferry, and Nick and Judy followed Mrs. Otterton’s lead as she waddled excitedly in its direction. As they approached from the rear, the full size of the ferry began to finally come into view; it must have stretched a hundred feet from stem to stern, and twenty-five feet across. Through the glass windows of the upper decks, Nick could spot the very tip of dozens of carefully-arranged stacks.

“I want one,” Nick whispered into Judy’s ear, readjusting his daypack over one shoulder.

“It’s not a pet,” Judy whispered back, tugging gently on the fox’s tail. “You couldn’t even keep that baby cactus alive.”

“You don’t have to water books,” Nick pointed out. “Just the opposite, in fact.”

“Come in, come in!” Ellen gestured to the both of them, as she bounded up the gangplank amidships, her tail swishing across the corrugated metal with glee. Nick and Judy dutifully fell in behind her, only just beginning to detect the telltale signs of wear around the facade of the vessel: a bit of peeling paint here, a bit of moss on the fender there. Judy didn’t know boats, but she couldn’t imagine what the upkeep must be on a vessel like this. But just then, Mrs. Otterton’s happy squeal interrupted her practical pondering, as another bright-faced, vaguely familiar otter stepped from behind a paperback-strewn counter.

“My little bookworm, come here,” the sea otter sighed, taking hold of Mrs. Otterton and hugging her tight to her chest. “Once a month isn’t enough,” she added, glancing a pair of friendly eyes over at Nick and Judy from where she’d rested her chin atop Ellen’s head. “A mother needs her pup fix, you know.”

Nick and Judy’s surprise was written all over their faces, as they both rapidly assessed the similar contours of the two otters in quick succession. The elder sea otter’s eyes grew large with mirth, as she released Ellen from her grasp and held her at arm’s length, smiling down at her. “You didn’t tell them,” she chided.

“I didn’t want to guilt them into it any more than I had. Asking them to help out a crazy old lady,” Ellen brushed off easily.

“You forgot fat,” Ellen’s mother barked happily, as she patted her well-earned hips with both paws. “Keeps me buoyant!”

“It’s a pleasure to meet you,” Nick recovered, extending one paw. “Mrs…” He squinted with uncharacteristic uncertainty. “Birchcomber?”

“Lois Birchheart,” the otter said graciously, taking Nick’s paws in her. “But Lois will do just fine.”

“Your shop is amazing,” Judy said, spinning around in place to try and take it all in. There were thousands of books just within her immediate field of view, and they’d seen who knows how many thousands more just through the windows from outside. The books must weigh more now than a full load of passengers did when the ferry was still in operation.

“Shop, home, pain in the tail,” Lois waved off humbly. She grabbed a gentle hold of Ellen’s purple, dragonfly-print cardigan at the shoulder. “Darling, there’s some tea already brewed, and some cicadabread and otterwife cake in the fridge.”

“So, how…” Nick ventured tentatively, already sniffing around the elaborate labyrinth of bookcases, each helpfully labeled with categories like “Geomythology” and “Species Studies.” It didn’t matter that they weren’t getting paid, Nick realized; this place would’ve swallowed his paycheck regardless.

“The ferry was already here,” Mrs. Birchheart explained, anticipating the usual first question. “Decommissioned as a commuter service when they started to expand the ZTA. It was actually a restaurant and jukeberry joint for a decade or two. The Apawlo?” Lois enquired hopefully, although moving on as she witnessed the spark of joyful recognition in Nick’s face but the complete absence of one in Judy’s. “But nightlife moved to the city when they added the ZTA line for the Canal District, so I snapped it up maybe ten years ago. Maybe not as exciting as concerts with Billiegoat Holiday, but I can’t complain.”

“I got nervous just signing a lease on a one-bedroom apartment,” Judy marveled. “I could fit my whole family on here.”

“Please don’t,” Nick pleaded softly.

Miss Birchheart barked her sweet bark, and began to walk along the portside railing as the slightly overwhelmed partners tagged behind. She knew all about Judy Hopps, courtesy of both her accidental fame and Ellen’s bottomless appreciation. Nick was less of a known quantity, but anyone who could sucker Judy into falling for them surely had some noble qualities. And he was the one whose nose was twitching at the scent of tons of gently aging paper.

“Thirty years in the merchant marines.” Lois pointed helpfully at a framed array of yearly union cards on one wall as they passed. “For my first ship, as a cub, I walked into a union hall in the afternoon and was on a feijoa flushdecker to the Dormousian Republic by sundown. They told me I could eat my weight in fruit every night, but I hadn’t realized they weren’t ripe yet.” Lois turned around and paused for dramatic effect. “The tarantulas were good eating, though.”

The sea otter continued her pace towards the bow of the boat, where the bookshelves suddenly began to thin out. A large domestic clearing, about the size of Nick’s apartment and with a similar-sized bed, took up the space in front of the deck-wrapping glass windows as it faced out towards the canals. A gentle fog rolled in as the sun began to set, the mist settling as it cooled. The view was leaps and bounds prettier than the observation deck at Oasis Casino.

“I had an adorable tanuki couple sleeping below deck until just last week,” Lois said, smiling towards the view. “I call them ‘driftwoods’: young travelers who will help ship out the online sales in exchange for three hots and a cot. I’d been hopping they’d handle my shop during my trip, but they decided to hike Mt. Kelpmanejaro instead. Can’t blame them for that, can I?” Lois turned and waved another welcoming paw over her abode, with small unofficial piles of personal reading popping up like aggressive sunflowers. “You’re welcome to sleep here in my room, or in the driftwood bunks down below.”

“Mom! You have a customer!” Mrs. Otterton’s voice had grown faint, as it made its way across the length of the boat and through several thousands of pages of soundproofing.

Mrs. Birchheart smiled gamely at Nick and Judy and began to shuffle back from whence they came. “It’s not rocket science. Online orders are just picking and shipping, and the rest is just mammaling the fort. One wholesale delivery in the time you’ll be here, and some weekly events.” She began to tick off the relevant details on one paw. “Stichin’ Bitches, the lady otter and canid knitting group, meets on Sableday morning. The Beehive Art and Revolution Collective, BARC, on Whelpsday; they’re doing a wonderful piece right now on Mezooemurican colonization. And open mic night, Funk in Ships, is on Furday evenings.” Nick’s new role model rounded the corner around the Entomophagy section and and took in the waiting mongoose at a glance.

“Ricky, good to see you,” Lois welcomed, as she erected a thin veil of girded patience. “What can I do you for?”

“I can’t remember the title, or the author,” Mr. Tikkitavi began, absurdly. “But the cover is blue.”

“ _The Diving Shell and the Flutterby_?” the wizened proprietor asked, as if by witchcraft.

“That’s the one!”

“Ellen, be a dear, won’t you? It’s by Jean-Dominique Beaubear. It should be in ‘Adaptive Memoirs.’”

Judy looked up to Nick. His head had been swiveling in every direction like a manic weathervane ever since they walked through the door. Judy poked him gently in the hip. “We just signed a lease, skunkbutt,” she reminded him.

“Whatever happened to making the world a better place?” Nick sighed begrudgingly, as he took Judy’s shoulder in his paw and pulled her close.


	4. Chapter 4

“I’m sorry,” Nick repeated. “There just isn’t any market for old _Treefur’s Digests_.”

The muskrat puffed himself up to the best of his ability. “These are pieces of history,” he blustered. “They belonged to my grandfather.”

“Was your grandfather a skunk?” Nick asked, narrowing his eyes. He thought pinching his nose shut might come across as needlessly dramatic. “Because I know what old books smell like, and this is nothing like that,” he said, tapping the woefully stained hardcover at the top of the pile.

“I scrubbed them with diluted tomato juice and vinegar,” the muskrat explained defensively. “You can hardly smell it.”

“We’ll pass.”

The peeved rodent wheeled his cart down the gangplank as Nick reclined into his new role as literary resale arbiter. Next to him, Judy retrieved a fresh packing slip for _The Life and Works of Marie Lavaflow: Growl-Growl Cleansings, Charms and Hexes_ , and slipped it into the padded envelope. The shipping address was to an anonymous Department of Mammal Corrections number at a savannah country penitentiary. This order was a breeze; despite their recent excursion on The Thread, Judy had failed to anticipate that she would need tweezers to fulfill the order to Little Rodentia.

Nick turned back to the small pile of recently-arrived biographies by his register. He picked up the first and flipped through the pages for evidence of margin notes, and eyed the binding along the spine to make sure it was tight. Sufficiently satisfied, he penciled forty percent of the cover price on the inside title page for _Outpaw: Hindia’s Bandit Queen and Me_. Next up were _Queen of the Soil Club: The Intrepid Wanda Gerbilski and the Power of Information_ , and _Shout, Mammal, Shout!: The Untold Story of Stone-and-Soul Trailblazer Sister Rose Evercarp_. He hated that he’d only read one out of the three.

Judy’s ears perked up, and pivoted themselves out the window and upstream. Nick directed his eyes along Judy’s superior line-of-hearing, although he couldn’t quite make out neither the masts nor the slack sails of their pending wholesale delivery; Judy had heard them running on motor power as they worked against the tide. Nick and Judy left their previous duties in mid-stream, and began the process of opening the doors amidships on the starboard side. They both squinted at the growing profile of the _Thornthrust_ , as its decks filled with portly, middle-aged beavers and capybaras.

“Didn’t Lois say that this was more of a passion project for some naval history nerds?” Judy recalled. After they’d spent their first night drifting off to sleep, atop a Sealish Posturepedic mattress of gentle lapping waves, they’d immediately made arrangements to take over for Lois when she left three days later. She’d left all the relevant instructions, and urged them to call Ellen if they had any questions; she’d made mention that the crew of the replica river sloop were more talented in traditional woodworking then they were in shipping and logistics, but the latter paid the bills.

“They put it together with four thousand black locust tree nails,” Nick confirmed, shaking his head. “ _Every one pawmade_.” Lois also said that they sometimes had to delay deliveries if it rained, because the deck could leak like a sieve. Some traditions stayed in the past for a reason, Nick thought.

“Miss Birchheart?” Nick turned suddenly as a sharply-dressed river otter walked up the gangplank, flanked by a pair of marsh rats in matching uniforms. “It’s Aldermammal Remi Mooneel,” the otter continued blithely, “and it’s time for…” The otter suddenly stopped short, at the sight of two unexpected mammals who in no way resembled an elderly, portly sea otter.

“Miss Birchheart is out of town, I’m afraid,” Judy said, stepping forward as Nick observed the scene blankly. “She’ll be back in two weeks,” Judy continued, as the rats glanced to one another, and then to the stone-faced aldermammal. “But maybe we can take a message?” Judy enquired perkily.

“Officer Judy Hopps?” Mooneel mustered, after a quickly glossed-over moment of surprise. Mooneel ran one paw along the length of his tie - Nick didn’t like the silhouette, he decided - and cleared his throat. “And…?” he requested, appraising Nick with a uncertain but sneaking suspicion.

“Officer Nick Wilde,” the fox returned graciously, plastering on an obscene smile. “Just taking over for Lois while she’s out of town.”

“Out of town?” Mooneel said in a barely subdued huff. One of the rats decided that he didn’t get paid to pay attention, and began to casually peruse the shelf nearest to him. _Snout to Snout: A Hyena-Raised Coywolf in the Outback Finds Her Pack_ , he read, _by Yelena Fangha_. Not up his stream, he decided.

“Just for a couple of weeks,” Judy pointed out.

“We’d scheduled an inspection,” Mooneel countered. “Again,” he added. “Surely she mentioned it.”

“She didn’t,” Nick told him. She had.

“That’s…” The aldermammal held it together in the face of two off-duty ZPD officers who he’d _really_ not expected to be here. “Miscommunications aside,” he attempted to smooth over, “may we proceed? It shouldn’t take long.” Judy glanced at Nick, as if conflicted. If the owner of Birchcomber Books wasn’t there to welcome Mooneel, they’d certainly have rights to deny him; the Marshlands had rather strict laws about any kind of forced entry onto private property without probable cause or a warrant. And, as Lois and Ellen had explained to them earlier - over a candlelit meal of cicada bread and amidst a flurry of overdone winks - Mooneel would be just _devastated_ if he couldn’t pull off this riverfront development deal.

“I’m so sorry,” Nick apologized, placing one paw over his heart in a show of genuine dismay. “But without the owner here…”

“And reception on the Allpupskin Tail is terrible,” Judy lamented.

“ _Fine_.” The rats sighed in unison and fell in behind the otter as he mustered his way back down the gangplank. “But tell her she’s running out of chances,” he warned them icily. That much was true; even rent-controlled berths like Lois’ were subject to district-level review eventually. But she’d be damned if some hardhide pencil-pusher was going to tell her how to take care of her own boat, she’d very sweetly implied.

“Charmer.” Nick watched Mooneel waddle back up the canal bank, his tail swishing angrily.

“You remember that ferret we arrested?” Judy asked, as she turned back to the _Thornthrust_ as it approached nearly close enough to throw a line; either she caught them on the first attempt, or she risked splashing the inside of a bookstore with brackish river water. “The one who’d converted the mailboxes at the old post office into illegal pygmy jerboa housing?”

“They could be twins,” Nick intoned slowly. He was in the middle of formulating a follow-up when he caught the tossed line with his head.  
—  
_“I woke up this morning, with a bad hangover. And my pebble was missing again.”_ Atop his stool, the otter strummed his guitar with mopey determination.

Nick pressed the ice pack to his temple and tried to imagine a superior soundtrack for his newfound headache, or at least something less grating than prose poetry set to cheap electric guitar during an open mic. His nose perked up as a furry paw deposited a fresh cup of boysenberry tea next to the register. Standing on the chair next to him, Judy lifted his paw off his scalp so as to better assess the damage.

“The swelling will be gone by tomorrow, I bet,” she surmised. She took the opportunity to kiss the tiny, egg-shaped bump peaking out from next to Nick’s left ear before placing a fresh ice pack into his paw. Leaning over to cross her arms on Nick’s shoulder, Judy rolled down one shirt sleeve, and rubbed the grain of her cast gently on the top of Nick’s snout where he could see it. “See?” she informed him, adorably. “Now we’re idiot buddies.”

“ _Un-a-ttach-a-ble pebble…_ ” the otter repeated, in a warbling chorus. “ _Un-a-ttach-a-ble pebble…_ ” 

“I bet he has a lot of detachable parts,” Nick muttered.

“Sourpuss.” She let Nick be as she turned around and rang up a teenage mink for a copy of _Herdhouse-Five_ by Kara Bonegut.

_“I was starting to get desperate. I really don’t like being without my pebble for too long. It makes me feel like less of a mammal.”_

“I’m caught up on the online orders,” Judy told Nick, gently pawing the edge of one ear.

“You should take tomorrow off,” Nick smiled, weakly, through the throbbing. “I’ve got it covered here.”

“You and your Stichin’ Bitches?”

“Me and my Stichin’ Bitches.”

_“I saw my pebble lying on a blanket, next to a broken toaster oven. Some guy was selling it. I had to buy it off him.”_

“I’ll be back by early evening,” Judy murmured. “You want to go out after we close that night? It’s the First Sableday Artwaddle.”

“That’d be nice,” Nick muttered quietly, dipping his snout gently onto Judy’s head, her ears wiggling on either side. “Let’s do that.”

“ _Un-a-ttach-a-ble pebble…_ ” the otter trailed off, to polite applause. “ _Un-a-ttach-a-ble pebble_ …”


	5. Chapter 5

Judy left Nick in bed and headed out the next morning, but not before feeding Slimer with the scraps leftover from the open mic. Slimer wasn’t Lois’ pet, exactly, but Judy didn’t know what else to call a river eel who dutifully showed up next to the anchor every morning, waiting to be fed.

Lois had left behind her Robin Wood bicycle for Nick and Judy to use, and had only gestured offhandedly to the dusty, looped cable that could serve as a lock. “We don’t have to worry much about that sort of thing,” was all she had said; Judy had dutifully taken it anyway, largely out of Zootopian habit. She’d also carefully marked the position of the adjustable seat and handlebars so she could return the bike how she found it.

She’d had lunch at an adorable oyster cafe (she’d had the seitan shrimp), where the kitchen preps plucked the daily special directly from their private aquaculture bed; next door, she watched as a beaver bicycle mechanic cut off a stalk of fresh bamboo with his teeth, and nibbled at each end until it precisely fit into the custom frame that he’d been building. Now, from the center of the bridge overlooking a canal, she had aimed her phone camera carefully so that she might send the iconic view to Mom and Dad, as a small parade of hippos and platypus started the early commute home.

She’d been so focused on obtaining the pitch-perfect composition that she’d hardly noticed the antlered stranger clomping up alongside her, if she hadn’t switched to the front-facing camera for an obligatory tourist selfie. By the time she’d turned around, he’d nearly been on top of her.

“Greetings, Officer Hopps!” the pronghorn greeted her, his starched white shirt doing nothing to offset the glow of his sandy, savannah fur. “I’ve been meaning to come by and introduce myself, but here you are!” he continued, cordially extending one well-manicured hoof. “I’m Ned Sandburrs.”

“Judy,” she introduced needlessly. She really needed to invest in a good hoodie and a pair of oversized shades. “I guess word gets around?”

“It does, and it’s always good to meet another new arrival,” Sandburrs said. “Not many Zootopians know what the Marshlands have to offer.”

“Oh, I’m starting to realize that,” she said, glancing around enviously. How was she supposed to tell Mom and Dad that she still loved them, but maybe she might be spending more of her vacation time in otter country and possibly learning to SCUBA dive? “But I’m just here temporarily.”

“Oh, I know,” Sandburr informed her, with a knowing casualness that was either creepy, emblematic of all tight-knit communities everywhere, or both. Probably both. “I heard all about it from Mooneel. I’m actually the president of ‘Neighbors for Urban Marshland Development,’ so I’m on the receiving end of his rants a _lot_.” Somebody forgot to double-check for acronyms, Judy thought; maybe they’d already printed the stationary.

Something in Judy’s face gave away her thinly-veiled discomfort, and Ned lowered his voice in sympathy. “Don’t let Remi get to you,” he said, as if Mooneel was the only character currently on Judy’s discomfort radar. “He’s a bit abrasive, but he gets things done. We all want the Marshlands to grow as responsibly as possible, but without diminishing any of its unique character.” This guy definitely _talked_ like he was on a first-name basis with politicians, Judy thought. “Personally, I think Lois is a wonderful asset to the community. Stubborn as a rock sometimes, but wonderful.”

“Well, the shop is always open,” Judy offered, with diplomatic poise, “to anyone from…” Judy fished around for the organization’s name, which Ned had only just told her thirty second ago. “Developers for Urban Marshland Betterment?” she ventured. _Oh Crackers, why had she said that. That was uncalled for. What had Nick done to her. But it was still pretty smooth burn, let’s be honest. Who’s clever and has two thumbs? This gal. Ow. OK, bone still fractured._

“Almost!” Ned’s lack of affinity for acronyms seemed to let Judy off the hook as he handed over his card. “Maybe I’ll see you at the Artwaddle?”  
—  
“Remi’s a scatheel. For real,” the swamppunk water possum was saying, as Nick nodded amicably. “He used to be a strategist for Bill Clawton’s mayoral campaign, and the aldermammal position was his consolation prize. He once sent a bucket of fish heads to a pollster he didn’t like.” Nick looked up, still half-listening, as Judy wheeled her bike back up the gangplank and back to the supply closet from whence it came. “He’s just jockeying to run for mayor himself one day,” the water possum continued. “Can’t do that without greasing a few paws in the city first.”

“I know a hustler when I see one,” Nick confirmed, to an approving nod. “How were the sights, fluff?” he asked, his head still big and swollen, but no longer literally.

“Needed more fox,” Judy replied smarmily, as the possum shuddered at the toxic levels of sweetness and walked off, sticking out her tongue in disgust like she’d accidentally shotgunned a durian smoothie.

“Good, because kayaks don’t have premiums on personal space.” Judy arched her eyebrows as Nick handed over their reservation from Shake, Paddle and Roll. “Give me fifteen minutes to sweep out some of the stragglers before they start growing moss.” Twenty feet down, Judy could make out the faint snoring of a Birchcomber regular, who only ever seemed to get one or two chapters in before passing out in his favorite Lay-Z-Bones.

They managed to usher out the narcoleptic pinniped a few hours after sundown (Birchcomber’s technically had “hours,” but those sort of restrictions tended to be unevenly enforced, depending entirely on how much Lois had gotten to talking with each evening’s customers). Nick and Judy closed up shop with the jenky hodgepodge of thin bolts and deceptively wrapped chains that did more to keep the doors shut in a windstorm than it did to prevent a half-brained mammal from breaking in. It set Judy’s teeth a little on edge, but Lois had told them that if someone were really so desperate for an illicit ZPR tote bag of Isaac Ashmole and Orson Scott Carapace novels, then they needed them more than she ever did.

Shake, Paddle and Roll inhabited a humble kiosk at the intersection of two canals, a half mile inland from Birchcomber’s, and Nick and Judy joined the modest line of ArtWaddle fans as they all patiently waited to rent their sweet, tipsy ride. A friendly hippo employee held the kayaks stable as the stream of less aquatic visitors, plus the occasional native Marshlander who didn’t feel like toweling off at night’s end, piled in and shoved off to join the growing, well-lubricated fray. Nick guessed that half of these kayaks had brought their own refreshments; in the starlit evening, Nick could make out a veritable platoon of lifeguards lining the canal perimeters. Even hippos could have too much to drink, although Nick dared not imagine the chunder.

The raccoon who took their reservation on the dock visibly tensed as a grizzled, middle-aged tapir walked up behind him, sternly surveying a clipboard. She could only be the owner, Nick surmised; no one makes a teenage sphincter clench quite like an overbearing boss in an underpaid job.

“Hopps and Wilde,” she read off the manifest. “You two are the ones camping out in Lois’ shop,” she remarked ambiguously.

“Guilty.” Nick replied simply. “We’re roughing it for literacy.”

“I hope you get a chance to clean the place up while you’re there.”

“Lois has actually got some serious cataloging chops, to be honest,” Judy hastened to point out, defensively.

“I wasn’t talking about the books.”

Still facing away from the tapir and peering fretfully at the flummoxed fox and rabbit, the raccoon’s eyes pleaded for death. Or at least a pay raise.

Judy and Nick slowly shimmied away down the dock, sliding into the waiting kayak, hardly saying another word. They maintained a measured silence as they slowly paddled into the glimmering pseudo-privacy of the bustling canal. “Suburbs be crazy,” Nick said finally, half to himself. Judy nodded.

The unlikely cop couple paddled leisurely over the course of the next several hours, late into the night. They made a right turn into a canal that had been littered entirely with bioluminescent leaves, which reminded Judy of the glowworm caves written onto the surface of the water; they passed a gaggle of little ones clambering over a gigantic hydraulophone, gleefully shoving their faces over the holes in water-spewing organ pipes and eliciting a soft liquid symphony of musical tones; they watched as a cadre of soused parents on date nights splashed the canal water all over specially-inked artwork that only revealed itself when it rained; they watched the hours chime away from atop a gigantic water clock that glowed an unearthly blue.

Nick nuzzled Judy’s neck as they walked back up the gangplank, the moon already beginning to dip back towards the horizon. They’d hadn’t even been in the Marshland for a week, but they’d fallen asleep each night to the sound of gently lapping river waves and the fiddled whispers of unseen crickets.

“Mmm,” Judy mumbled softly. Without warning, she reached up to grab Nick’s muzzle in one paw, and turned his nose towards hers so she could stare directly in Nick’s eyes. “Driftwood cots,” she announced with steely conviction. She had every intention of leaving Lois’ bed smelling like daffodils.

“We’re not animals, carrots,” Nick nodded, in full agreement.

Judy smacked Nick gently on the muzzle and meandered towards the stairs down below. Nick made a slight detour towards the fridge, because a full evening of paddling and art and romance and fiendishly complicated urban planning drama had a way of working up an appetite. He cracked open the door and cast his eyes about for his first true love. He narrowed his eyes, and cast a suspicious glance underneath the cicadabread.

“Fluff!” he yelped casually down the stairs. “Did you eat all the blueberries?”

“We had five pounds to last the week, you bottomless monster,” came the loving reply, as it thudded down the stairs.

“If that swamppunk nicked my stash…” Nick muttered incredulously, when suddenly he heard Judy let out a panicked squeak. And…a splash?

“NICK.” Nick raced to the top of the stairs and flicked on the light, which Judy hadn’t bothered to do. He stared down.

Judy stared back from the bottom of the stairs, mouth agape, standing ankle deep in water.


	6. Chapter 6

“SCAT.” Every one of Nick’s hairs stood on end; some may have shot off him entirely, as if launched from a cannon. “SCAT SCAT SCAT SCAT SCAT.”

The water had risen just enough to allow the cots to float. Nick had enough scattered presence of mind to check his balance, and took the faintest trace of relief from noticing that the boat didn’t seem to be listing to one side; he had no intention of being caught inside the Birchcomber if it decided roll over like a drunk whale. Nick had thought the gangplank hadn’t been inclined as steeply as usual, but this was the worst way to find out why: they were sinking.

“WHERE IS IT COMING FROM.”

“I DON’T KNOW,” Judy yelled, plodding her way through the stacks. The driftwood cots peeked out from behind a thin curtain marked “Staff Only,” but this part of Birchcomber was otherwise, literally, the bargain basement. That consolation didn’t do much to sooth the nerves of the terrified shopsitters as they watched the water level begin to crest the bottommost shelves, drawing the discounted and overstock romances into the sweet, liquid kiss of death.

“Bucket,” Nick announced, to himself. “I’LL FIND SOME BUCKETS,” he said as he rapidly turned tail and fled back into the main body of the shop. His mind rapidly ran through the mental images of the mop bucket in the supply closet, and of the flower pot near the stern that Lois used for occasional leaks.

“CALL ELLEN,” Judy yelled after him, desperately grabbing books with her good arm from the as-of-yet untouched shelves, and shoving them into the scant available spaces higher up. She hastily grabbed a copy of _Ravaged by a Raptor_ , which in turn dislodged the second copy next to it. The niche dinosaur erotica fell into the drink with a subdued _ker-plunk_ , the splash from its watery demise spotting Judy’s fur around her knees.

Upstairs, Nick clattered frantically through the Simple Preen cleaning supplies with one paw while scrolling down his phone contacts in the other. He overshot Ellen’s name wildly and began to dial back. As his free paw finally grabbed hold of the inevitably inconvenient bucket, his eyes took in a waterfall of mammalian mobile numbers that he used to call for favors; none of them, he realized, would make him feel worse than a disappointed otter librarian.

Nick returned to find Judy lugging one armful of advance reader’s editions at a time up the stairs, placing them halfway up the still-dry steps. Judy had run out of height before she’d run out of free shelf space, and the rungs of the tiny plastic stepladders now felt too slick under her paws to be trusted.

“SHE’S COMING!” Nick relayed, grabbing hold of the haphazard piles from the steps and tossing them up and out the door in a regrettable heap. Ellen was coming, but the Ottertons lived in the Rainforest District at least an hour away; “I’ll call Terry!” she had assured him, as she’d rushed out the door in the middle of the night. A tiny bit of Nick’s brain readied himself to disappoint a veritable menagerie of sweetheart mammals in the next hour or two.

“Water’s still rising,” Judy reported fitfully, as she reached for Nick’s bucket. A two-foot rabbit and a four-foot fox did not an ideal bucket line make.

“Your arm,” Nick protested.

“Our shop,” Judy countered.

Nick retrieved the smaller flower pot from inside the bucket and handed it over. “I’m not breaking anything else tonight,” he told her, with false optimism.

The flower pot leaked, and the mop bucket handle bowed dangerously as Nick and Judy lumbered up and down the stairs, casting the water out the starboard side windows one or two liters at a time. This stretch of canal didn’t have much in the way of neighbors to whom they could call the alarm, even if Nick had known whom to call. Not that he needed more of an audience. The hands on the ship’s wheel novelty clock above the register continued to march on, mockingly.

“We’ve lost the bottom shelves,” Judy huffed as she passed Nick on her way up the stairs. Nick sighed and dipped the bucket next to a pile of waterlogged copies of _Chimera Cuckolds, Volume 4_. He hated to look down his nose at any book, he thought, but surely the first three volumes had covered all the bases?

“Nick!” Both Nick and Judy’s ears perked up at the booming voice from just onshore. It did not sound like a swamp rabbit named Terry.

“Nick, you flea-fondling prick!” the beaver shouted. “Can’t have your emergencies at a reasonable hour…” Lou stormed up the gangplank and stopped, staring with sleep-deprived ire at Judy as she stood in drenched flannel while gripping a cracked plastic flower pot. She pointed wordlessly at the stairs.

“Lou!” Nick shouted, not sure whether Lou’s arrival warranted relief or terror. He knew that Lou lived in the Marshlands, but it took a special mammal to wake up to a frantic twilight voicemail without wanting to murder somebody. “We need a bigger bucket,” Nick cracked; _Maws_ seemed like the apt reference.

“Where’s the leak?” Lou demanded, unhinging his prosthetic tail. “And what happened to your bilge pump?!” he added, placing his tail at chest height and flipping the latch. Lou certainly still missed the original model, but being able to carry a floating toolbox everywhere he went had certain advantages.

“Been a bit busy!” Nick explained impotently. “And…” He’d heard the word “bilge” before, in _Pirates of the Crustacean_. “Don’t know?” he admitted, weakly.

“Worthless,” Lou spat. He glanced about seeking some kind of direction, as Judy hopped down the stairs and landed with an half-controlled splash. She and Nick returned to their hapless bucket brigade, puffing up the stairs in adrenaline-fueled exhaustion, Nick’s tail whipping off the excess water as he ascended. Nick took a half-glance over his shoulder at the top of the stairs, as Lou wiped his mouth from where the fox tail had sprayed him. He was _on fire_ tonight.

“I love it here,” Judy said to Nick as she cast her fortieth liter out the window and into the canal. “But I think I may love dry land more.”

“I’ll never read _Life of Pipsqueak_ again,” Nick swore, forcing the weariest of smiles to his rabbit as he turned down the stairs. Lou’s paw came as a complete surprise, grabbing hold of his shirt and tie and shoving him against the doorjamb to one side. Nick and Judy stopped in their tracks and watched as Lou pounded his way back down the gangplank. They could still hear his caustic grumbling as he disembarked and made his way along the edge of the canal.

Nick looked at Judy and sighed, as they both shrugged and made their way back down the stairs. “Sink a boat, burn a bridge…” Nick moped, as Judy looked on with damp concern. “Not the bucket list I had in mind.” Nick’s capacity for wordplay may have been the most waterproof thing within fifty miles. They both dipped their containers into the water, at a fraction of the speed at which they’d started. This was a better workout than the Academy, Judy thought.

The rabbit took stock of the water level again. It sat quietly, about halfway up the bottom lip of the second row of shelves. That’s strange, she thought.

“Nick?” she muttered. Nick glanced over at her dejectedly, bucket over one shoulder. “Did it stop?” Judy asked, skeptically. Nick’s eyes widened.

Lou’s stout beaver body thumped defiantly against the stairs as he descended, slowly, below decks. He came to a stop just above the water, his brow furrowed into a semi-permanent trough as he assessed the two landlubbers. Wordlessly, without making eye contact, he motioned Nick over to him with a sternly curled paw. Nick looked at Judy but plodded over submissively, the fox’s ears coming up to Lou’s chest as he stood on the stairs. Lou looked over to one side and seemed to consider the books on the third and fourth shelf; after a moment, he reached over and retrieved a hefty, ex-library copy of _Sisters Karamuzzle_.

“YOU’RE.” The tome of classic lit thudded atop Nick’s head. “NOT.” Onto his left shoulder as he tried to turn away. “SEAWORTHY.” Again on the head.

“I get it, I get it!” Nick admitted, painfully, as he backed away. Death by papercuts was not the kind of existential impact that Doesteelevsky had in mind.

“This is FRESHWATER!” Lou glowered, pointing at the uninvited swimming pool at Nick and Judy’s knees. He just sneered at the sight of their continued incomprehension. “A pipe fitting must have burst,” he explained through gritted teeth. “But you’re still hooked up, dockside. The system thought the loss of pressure was just an open tap. So the dock kept pumping.” He raised the _Sisters K_ once more, for effect, as Nick took another step backwards as a precaution.

“You could have just turned it off yourselves,” Lou grumbled as he thumped back up the stairs. “If either of you had the faintest clue what you were doing.”


	7. Chapter 7

Nick surveyed the growing, moist mountain of fallen literature on the dock. The loss of the cryptozoology smut had been the easiest to accept, but there had been some real gems that’d he’d plucked forlornly out of the one-buck bins. And yet, the pile grew only as quickly as they could catalogue their losses; after so thoroughly demonstrating his seafaring incompetence, the last thing he needed was to fail at proper bookkeeping, as well.

A metallic paw came to rest on Nick’s shoulder. A less-than-placid baby molerat swung her rattle to and fro, attempting to destroy anything in her path.

“Just got off the phone with Lou,” Ursula informed him gently. The wombat had woken up that morning to a series of terse texts, in which Lou had summarily informed her that he had filled up his “moron quota” for the month. “He had some very colorful ideas for how you two can pay him back.”

“I bet,” Nick sighed. He’d known full-well that store credit couldn’t buy himself out of this debt.

“Personally, I think you should consider being the piñata at his stepdaughter’s _quillceañera_ ,” Ursula advised wisely. “At least there will be candy.”

“Everything’s better with candy,” Ellen said, as she approached Nick from the other side, cooing gently at Octavia. “Growlstopper?” Mrs. Otterton offered to the communing pair, extending one paw filled with multicolored packets of honey gum.

“You are being unbelievably friendly to a pair of hapless mammals who almost destroyed your mother’s livelihood,” Nick mumbled quietly. Ursula gave Nick a parting pat and headed back inside, now two growlstoppers richer. He watched as Terry and the rest of the industrious Bowmusk clan meandered down the gangplank, lugging a couple sagging garbage bags that had already begun to leak from the strain.

“My mother makes her living with her spirit,” Ellen observed serenely, joining Nick by the railing. “She always said that books are just advertisements for life. They’re never been her safe space,” the otter continued, glancing sweetly at the crestfallen fox. “They’re a source of inspiration. A springboard.”

“Well, we’ve given her every inspiration she needs to strangle me with my own tail.”

“Oh, hush.” Ellen reached over and gripped Nick’s forearm, prompting a strange moment of _déjà vu_ that Nick couldn’t quite place. “It wasn’t your fault.”

“Pretty sure it was, this time.” He and Judy had forced themselves to take a power nap around dawn, each falling asleep to the sneaking suspicion that they might be criminally incompetent. Nick shrugged and turned around to face the shop, still afloat despite his worst efforts. “I bit off more than I could chew.”

“That’s exactly what my mother told herself, the first time she sailed across the North Catlantic. Her ship got caught in a storm.” Ellen smiled glibly, as if a tale of her mother skirting death was the best possible pep talk she could imagine. “She didn’t sleep for three days. All to deliver a few thousand tons of horn polish and qiviut fiber.” Ellen looked over to Nick, her glossy coat gleaming in the mid-morning sun. “She didn’t stop sailing for thirty years.”

“Most mammals aren’t your mother,” Nick pointed out.

“Most mammals can’t win over a girl like Judy, either.” Nick wasn’t sure how Mrs. Otterton could conjure such warm fuzzies out of such damp conditions. “If I’ve learned anything from my time in the library,” Ellen continued, “it’s that anyone can succeed at anything. As long as they have people behind them.”

“Can I still have one of those growlstoppers?” Nick asked, as Ellen held out a happy paw. “Because I’m worried your sweetness is giving me cavities.”

“Ursula’s fixing the bilge pump,” Judy announced, as she peaked her head from inside; they’d been using the manual back-up, but it was so old that it demanded about as much effort as their late night bucket brigade. Judy’s tired eyes smiled at the tender moment between otter and fox; both she and Nick were running on fumes. “That should let us pump out what’s left.”

“I promise that we’ll dry off before we sleep in your mother’s bed,” Nick told Ellen as they both trudged inside.

“You don’t know what it’s like to have fur like this,” Ellen preened, in a manner that almost bordered on smug. “Our hair dryers could double as jet engines.”

Ursula kneeled down on an open stretch of starboard railing as she laid out the pump before her. She fished around the inside of the intake valve, drawing forth chunks of undifferentiated glop. It smelled almost like fermenting fruit, Nick observed offhandedly from his sleepy stupor.

“This thing is clogged to mantel and back,” Ursula muttered. “If it’d been clean, it could have fought off most of that leak without you.” She set to work with a crosshead claw to loosen the screws on the strainer, which should have caught any offending rags and muck that usually caused this sort of problem.

“That does surprise me, I’ll admit.” Ellen appraised the disassembled boat part, arms akimbo. She’d left a message for her mother, but Judy hadn’t been completely dishonest with Mooneel; reception on the Allpupskin _was_ terrible. “My mother is a stickler for boat maintenance,” she said, shaking her head in disbelief. “I guess one of the driftwoods must have dropped the ball.” Ursula leaned in for a closer look, pursing her lips. 

“I know you like your midnight snacks, Nick.” The wombat arched one eyebrow in the fox’s direction, who arched it back at her. “But this is ridiculous.”

“You aren’t wrong,” Judy butted in, having just leaned against and slid down the railing as if for an impromptu riverboat slumber. “But I don’t follow.”

Ursula turned the strainer over and pounded the other side with one paw. The fused, decaying mass of blueberries landed on the deck with a sickly thud.  
—  
The sun set over the canals as Mrs. Otteron cut the loaf of cicada bread into slices and placed them onto the common plate, on top of the counter. Judy and Nick were both starving, but eating had played second fiddle to their desperately-needed midday nap. Mrs. Otterton had done the same at the Bowmusk’s, which had also allowed her to return that evening with a few bags of hay crisps and a few jars of blueberry marmalade to tide Nick over.

“So.” Judy nibbled on a hay crisp tentatively. “You’re sure you didn’t have a secret stash downstairs?” Technically, it was ‘down below,’ Ellen thought.

“I wish I did,” Nick said, dipping his bread into the marmalade. “We’re supposed to be on vacation from this kind of thing.”

“As sabotage goes, it’s almost adorable,” Judy mulled, reaching for her Paws' Dew Ribbon.

“I’m still blown away by the idea,” Ellen confessed, her eyes bordering on weepy at the thought. “An accident I could handle.”

The evidence had been slim, but unbearably suspicious. Boats absolutely did sink all the time due to negligence, and they had to admit that nobody would have been especially surprised if the vintage ferry had gone belly-up under the watch of two boating neophytes like Nick and Judy. Had they not opted to wander down below, the Birchcomber could have taken on water all night as they slept on deck. Provided, that is, that the bilge pumps hadn’t fought back.

“I would have preferred if they hadn’t sacrifice my blueberries,” Nick groused.

“It is half-clever,” Judy admitted. “They were the right size to clog the filter. And, as evidence goes, they’d already decayed pretty quickly.”

“Doesn’t it kind of give things away? Nick noticed they were missing,” Ellen wondered, gnawing distractedly on the cicada crust.

“They might’ve had to improvise,” Judy hypothesized. “If Lois kept up her bilge pumps, like you said, it might not have been sinking fast enough.”

“It’s not like we didn’t know that people wanted her gone,” Ellen murmured quietly. “But this…”

Nick reached over and took Mrs. Otterton’s paw in his. He’d grown awfully fond of this motherly otter in the week or so since he’d actually met her. He had no trouble imaging how much Judy must have wanted to help her, when she’d first scurried past a winded, outmaneuvered Ben and into Bogo’s office.

“A wise mammal once told me,” he began, drawing Ellen’s eyes to his. “That anyone can succeed at anything…” Ellen actually rolled her eyes, to Judy’s minor confusion, although Nick took it as a personal victory; it was evidence that even Mrs. Otterton had limits. “As long as they have people behind them.”

They all froze as they heard the light patter up the gangplank, followed by an earnest rap at the door. They’d received a few visits from inquisitive customers and neighbors over the course of the day, as they couldn’t possibly hide the clean-up efforts as the mound of soggy literature bloomed outside. A few of the swamppunk otters from BARC had been a bit testy, but Nick suspected that had more to do with their deep-seated suspicion of cops more than anything.

“Mr. Wilde?” Mooneel called. “Ms. Hopps?” The shipboard mammals appraised one another without speaking. Nick pushed back his chair and headed to the door. Judy pulled a Bee’s Knee’s out of the untouched six-pack, popped off the cap - between her chompers, like a champ - and passed it to a nervous Ellen.

“Aldermammal Mooneel,” Nick smiled, as he opened the door. “Always a pleasure.”

“I appreciate that,” Remi mustered, disingenuously. He spotted Judy and Ellen at the counter and gave an obligatory nod. “Mrs. Otterton.”

“Remi.” Ellen took a hefty swig.

“It’s a bit late for an inspection,” Nick begged off, in strained apology. After today, even he couldn’t manage much of a false front. “Maybe another day?”

“One day,” Remi told him. “But I’m not here for that.” He drew a glossy flyer from his inside jacket pocket and handed it over to Nick with an air of haughty officialdom. “I just wanted to make sure you all knew that we’re having another community meeting tomorrow. It’d be good if you could come.” He stole a glance at Mrs. Otterton, who’d turned away. “I thought you might appreciate seeing just how hard the community has been working to reach a compromise.”

Nick took in the flyer at a glance. At least they were holding it in a library, he thought.

“I think maybe we would,” Nick nodded, sincerely.


	8. Chapter 8

“One more thing,” the capybara said, for the third time. Judy glanced around at the assembled meeting, trying to suss out if anyone else had spent the past hour wondering how long it might take to gnaw off their own ears. “I just want to stress that seafoam green is an important part of the maritime color palate. I don’t think any of us,” the capybara gestured around him, with astonishing conviction, “want to see a development whose windowpanes disrupt the feeling of the neighborhood with some garish, untraditional alternative. Like _cyan_.” The capybara spit out the last word as if he were a taste tester for a beleaguered prince.

“Hear, hear!” shouted an otter shrew, from their balcony behind Nick, at shoulder-level. The meeting room had been packed, and they were four hours in. Ellen stood next to them, listening devoutly with what Judy could only describe as a supermammalian attention span. They had been warned that the Marshlands considered themselves “the consensus champions of the mammal kingdom,” but Judy still couldn’t wrap her mind around this…negotiation theatre? Mrs. Otterton had tried to explain the origins of the _pawddler_ model of consensus that governed the district, about how it had evolved by necessity to drain and reclaim the necessary land, all of which resided below sea-level. But Judy had begun to lose feeling in one leg, and both halves of her brain. Nick didn’t look any better: if eyes were windows to the soul, her fox’s eyes looked like the window that The Hyena got thrown through in the very beginning of _Watchmammals_.

“Thank you, Mr. Furgulch,” the presiding chairotter said, after an excessively drawn-out pause to ensure that the capybara had truly finished. Mooneel sat to her left, paws folded tightly with what looked to be the least patience of any other otter in the room. Nick and Judy could never see themselves _liking_ the mammal, but after this morning? They had to begrudgingly admit that the otter’s disavowal of social niceties might actually cut through the red tape before someone called everybody together for a ten-hour PawPoint presentation to suggest they change the red tape to fuchsia. Being a scatheel had its perks.

As soul-numbing as the meeting had been, Judy had managed to make mental notes of all the possible angles in the room. Mooneel was Suspect Number One, for obvious reasons; according to Ellen, his most recent visit had not been the first, second or third time that he’d tried to find some building code violation with which to shut Birchcomber down. He certainly stood the most to gain politically if Lois’ ferry birth became vacant or abandoned.

Sandburrs stood out. He sat front and center in the crowd, having spoken at least a half dozen times so far this morning. He seemed just as unnervingly willing to gladhoof as he’d been on the bridge, and appeared to have hit upon a solution for Marshland meetings; from where Judy was standing, she could just barely spy a livestream of a pebblepush game in the corner of his Zoogle Graze. He didn’t strike Judy as knowing any more about boat sabotage as she or Nick, but that didn’t mean that he didn’t have the semi-sociopathic, young mammal professional drive to make his community more welcoming to mammals like him.

The tapir, Mrs. Dapplehide, hadn’t minced words. She just thought Birchcomber attracted a bunch of foul-smelling hipfurs and dangerous radicals; her invective had prompted a few flipped tails from the BARC crowd behind her. There’d been others, one of whom Nick had actually recognized: an unkempt muskrat who’d most recently tried to sell him on a wheelbarrow full of _Zootopian Geographics_ that smelled like they’d been used for dung beetle bedding.

There’d been plenty of support, of course. The aforementioned radicals and hipfurs had turned out in droves, the Bowmusks had packed the upper decks like only a rabbit family could, and the Lay-Z-Bones-loving pinniped had made a moving speech about how Lois had helped him receive treatment for his insomnia. 

None of this helped Nick and Judy narrow down their next move at all. They could see the frustration and concern in each other’s eyes as the reality dawned on them: they weren’t cops here, they were civilians. They could try to file a report with some of the most circumstantial evidence Judy had ever heard of - Lois didn’t believe in surveillance, and the water had destroyed any lingering scents or additional evidence - but they felt like they’d reached the limit of their powers.

“We have time for one more comment before lunch,” the chairotter announced. “If the Current moves you.” The crowd retreated back into their reverent silence; _pawddler_ protocol demanded that the meeting could only adjourn after every mammal had been given a clear, unfettered chance to speak their piece.

A minute passed before the otter lifted her head once more. “Excellent,” she announced. Nick and Judy both resisted the urge to break into spontaneous calisthenic exercises, or to sing _Bonehelium Rhapsody_ , or to do anything that might betray the fact that they were alive. “In that case…” The otter paused suddenly, looking to a far corner of the room. “Ah! Miss Berryfallen?” Craning their heads in terrified misery, Nick spotted the moss-specked profile of a sloth.

As. She. Raised. Her. Hand.

“Run.” Nick whispered desperately, as Judy’s eyes screamed for the kind of mercy only found in _Eddypuss Rex_. “ _Run_.”  
—  
“A stake-out?” Judy proposed. “They might try to hit it again before we leave.” Judy and Nick took another lap around the scale models scattered through the library foyer, complete with Zoogle ScratchUp diagrams. From inside the meeting room, they could hear a sudden bustle of activity as the council officially unshackled the attendees for lunch. It was only an hour after noon, so Nick suspected that Miss Berryfallen must have kept it short and sweet. Bless her.

“We already spend the nights in the possible crime scene. And we almost lost Lois’ shop once,” he retorted. “Do you really want to try our luck a second time?”

“Surveillance?” Judy lowered her voices as the mammals begin to stream out into the halls, descending upon the fruit salads and tiny beetle sandwiches that political meetings and art galleries all seemed to demand. “I wouldn’t be surprised if they coordinated with one another. Hadley might have a parabolic mic.”

“That’s called stalking, Carrots.”

“I hate this,” Judy muttered, her ears flattening along her neck as she stood in front of a proposed model for the Birchcomber’s stretch of waterfront: a 200-unit water shrew condominium complex, with catamaran parking and berrywine bars lining the canalfront. “I became a cop to help the little guys. But how can I help?” She gestured around with unfamiliar futility at the array of possible futures, none of which seemed to contain room for the Birchcomber. “Against all this?”

“Maybe you already did,” Nick reminded her, as they made way for a famished rhino making a beeline for the complimentary plate of _canopy canapés_. “We stopped the Birchcomber from sinking. Well, Lou did.” Nick pulled Judy close as they both surveyed the casual hubbub of completely legitimate politics swirling all around them. “They might think twice about doing it again,” Nick reckoned. “And, even then? Lois has been fighting this fight long before we washed up.”

“Look at you two,” Ellen cooed from behind, as she placed one arm on Judy’s shoulder and the other around Nick’s hip. “You make such adorable conspirators.”

“I wish there was more we could do, Mrs. Otterton,” Judy pleaded, as much to herself as to Ellen. “But we’re…”

“ _Fish out of water_?” Nick finished, flashing a broad smile.

“How have I not murdered you yet.”

“Rockhome Syndrome, mostly.”

“You two have already done more than we could ever have asked you to do.” Ellen took Judy’s paws in hers and looked up at Nick with unbidden fondness. “But Nick is right,” she said, shaking Judy’s paws and holding eye contact with her even as both parties’ noses began to gently twitch. “This is my mother’s fight.”

“Well, my money’s certainly on her,” Nick said confidently. “Sweetest barepaw boxer I’ve ever met.”

“Oh, she doesn’t do that anymore,” Ellen dismissed humbly, looking off towards the canapés. Fox and rabbit looked at one another. Slowly, they blinked.

“I almost hate to tell you,” Mrs. Otterton began, as Nick and Judy’s definitions of old age slowly rearranged themselves. “Mom finally got reception. With everything that happened, she’s more than happy to come back a few days early.” Ellen watched the subtle sorrow spread over the faces in front of her, and quickly waved her paws in dismay. “Oh, no! You’re more than happy to stay!” she clarified. “But no one knows how to fix up that old bucket like my mother.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Otterton.” Judy took the cardigan-clad otter into her arms, and the endlessly-loving _Lutra_ wrapped her body around the rabbit in possibly the best, most hydrodynamic hug ever. “But we should tell her what we think happened,” Judy added, looking up at Nick as he nodded his unwavering support.

“Oh, of course.” Ellen said, releasing Judy from her grip and ushering them both towards the diminishing plate of crab rangoon. “She loves a good mystery.”


	9. Chapter 9

Lois sighed, and reached for the apple strudel. Making an excessive number of paddlecakes had always helped her relax.

“We tried to find as much evidence as we could,” Judy summarized, wearily. Nick leaned against the refrigerator door, arms crossed glumly, as Ellen sat at the counter nursing a Bee’s Knees. “But the water really did a number below decks, and there are hairs for a hundred different species in just the Evolutionary Romance section alone,” she lamented, as Lois gingerly lifted the paddlecake batter before adding a pinch of actual ginger.

“Better freshwater than brackish,” Lois said, staring full-on into the bright side. “Pickled romance novels are just the _worst_.”

“We can still make some calls,” Nick offered, trying to make use of what resources they had. “Maybe drag out some actual CSIs…”

“Listen to you two,” Lois remarked dryly, before reaching over to borrow Ellen’s beer, and adding a splash of honey stout to the nearly-perfect midnight breakfast food. “You sound like you woke up with barnacles on your tails.”

“You did put us in charge,” Judy opined, as she leaned against Nick’s hip, feeling spent. “We need to take responsibility for what happened under our watch.”

Lois turned and wagged her spatula at the depressed mammal pair. “Don’t hog all the credit,” she chided. “I once chewed out a driftwood in front of Remi, for unplugging the bilge alarm during a storm. Water-brained weasel thought it was just my way of getting him out of bed before noon.” Judy and Nick hadn’t even thought to account for all of Lois’ redundancies; the alarm wires had been loosened just enough to cut its power, but not enough to scream foul play. “I’m not saying Remi did it, but people like to talk in the Marshlands. You may have noticed.” Nick’s eye twitched at the memory. “Probably gave someone an idea.”

“Give them time to mope, mother,” Ellen lobbied graciously, as she grabbed a couple plates for the pending paddle cake. “It’s part of a balanced breakfast.”

Lois divvied up the apple-ginger-watercress batter magic onto the dishware, each printed with a different classic Alphonse Muska painting, and passed them around. Nick and Judy accepted theirs with long faces. Nick grabbed some maple syrup from nearby, and gave his serving a gentle drizzle; the pool of thick amber tree sap slowly ran off the paddlecake and around the edges of the plate, obscured the image of a vexing possum dyad in a flowing chamise blouse.

“We can pay you back for the merchandise you lost,” Nick announced. Judy chewed her lip, but only because she didn’t need to bite her tongue; Nick had made a compelling argument last night, in a discouraging round of pillow talk. Money would be tight for a few months, but it only seemed right; thankfully, the past few months of cohabitation had helped them build up a bit of a cushion. They would just have to live on hay and canned crickets for a while.

“Nonsense,” Lois dismissed immediately, to Nick and Judy’s ambitious mixture of relief and consternation. The sea otter put down her plate and wandered over to the register, as Nick and Judy listened to the sounds of an elderly sea otter sorting through piles of aging yellow ledgers and multiple tins of growlstoppers.

“Do you know the most valuable book I have in this shop?” Lois asked rhetorically, as her head popped back above the counter. Before Nick and Judy could think to reply, they watched as an elderly paw lobbed a thick, ratty dome over the counter. It landed with a powerful thud at Nick’s feet. The fox stared.

“…I’m not sure that’s how you treat a first edition,” Nick ventured, uncertainty.

“Fifty-fifth, actually.” Lois walked back and loomed over the book as Nick and Judy stood by, expectantly. Ellen continued to tucker into her paddlecake; she’d seen this routine before.

“ _Zootopian Practical Navigator: An Epitome of Navigation_ , by Nathaniel Pawditch,” Lois explained. “Pretty much a sacred text for marine mammals,” she added, as Ellen nodded knowingly. “I picked this one up in a buck bin fifty years ago, in a secondpaw barge market across from the union hall. The day of my first ship.”

“How much is it worth?” Judy asked, as she took another bite of paddlecake. Over the years, Lois’ cooking had overpowered many mammal’s moping instincts.

“Economically? It’s weight in pulp; it’s fifty editions out of date by now. But personally?” She smiled. “Worth remembering.”

“Are you always so rough with your memories?” Nick enquired, matching Judy bite for bite.

“I didn’t get into this business for the money,” Lois said, shaking her head. “I got into it for the community. Memories come free.” She sighed, her whiskers trembling slightly in contemplation. She looked out the window and over the canal, its still waters pockmarked with the reflection of stars in a clear twilight night.

“I keep telling you to write some of those memories down, you know,” Ellen commented, appraising the last inch of her beer with a gentle, investigative shake.

“Never had the time.” The otter adventurer took a deep breath and turned, taking in the full sweep of her shop in a steady pivot: thousands of books she’d also never had the time to read, a stretch of the canal she’d called home for years, the lingering scents of countless mammals who’d come and gone. “But maybe I should make time,” she murmured quietly, but not so quietly that Lois, Nick and Judy’s ears didn’t stand on edge at the tone. “I can’t swim upstream forever.”

“Mom…” Ellen said, her voice beginning to seep with worry. Judy looked over at Nick; his nose had begun to quiver.

“Miss Birchheart,” Nick began, and paused. He tried to weigh his words carefully, as a bookworm but also as a visitor. “I want you to know what an honor it’s been to be a part of this place, for even a short while.” Judy reached over and took Nick’s paw in both of hers, trying to lend some kind of support during this rare moment of vulnerability. “But I would hate to think of this place fading away, just because some scatheels like Remi, or whomever, want to…”

Lois Birchheart spun around suddenly, her face a paean of genuine surprise as she took in the gauntlet of somber faces in front of her. Then, she threw her head back and laughed.

“Oh, great lakes!” she convulsed, grabbing hold of her ample belly, trembling with barely contained mirth. “You absolute honeyhearts!” Both cops scanned Lois’ face wildly for additional evidence for how to proceed, while the librarian wondered feverishly how best to catalogue this new genre of maternal emotion.

The owner of Birchcomber Books did her best to draw her fabulous chortle to a close, as she bent over and drew Nick and Judy into one of those patented otter cuddles. “Oh, you two are the best,” she told them. “Just a bit out of your element.” Secretly, Judy was grateful for the lack of another _fish-out-of-water_ pun.

“Judy, dear,” Lois continued. She patted the rabbit’s face with one paw, her eyes brimming with affection. “You’re sharp as a tack, and probably the best thing to ever happen to this fox,” the otter said, as Judy’s nose began to swell with affirmation and pride. “But you think like a cop.” Judy blinked in surprise as Lois turned then to Nick, in the exact same way. “And bless you, handsome. But you’re a loner, and I’m not sure you know what it’s like to have a community.”

“You’ve got to stop drifting around the dyke, mom.” Ellen’s face had grown a knowing smile while Nick and Judy weren’t looking. “I know you and your plans.”

Lois stood back, and began to rub her paws together as she wandered back to the register, and fished around underneath the counter again until she found what she was looking for: a thick, old-fashioned black notebook. She flipped through the pages and watched the names, numbers and emails swim by in a flash.

“Remi and his ilk _are_ scatheels,” Lois affirmed, as she turned back to a quietly perplexed Nick and Judy. “But you don’t always need a badge to get justice,” she said, as she pulled out her phone and began dialing one of the first numbers she found. “Not when you know everybody,” she grinned, her eyes glimmering.


	10. Chapter 10

Mrs. Dapplehide brooded over next week’s roster, the lingering empty shifts shouting out at her from behind a jigsaw puzzle of personal requests and variable class schedules. Ryan could power through another double, she decided unilaterally; two doubles a week seemed more than doable. She ruled with an iron but forgiving paw.

From outside, somewhere up on the canal, the tapir’s ears perked up as she began to hear what she could only describe as a serenade of off-pitch snores. She lingered over the roster as the sounds grew louder, now accompanied by the rowdy barks of overly exuberant youth. She huffed, fiercely, pushing herself back from her desk and taking a few frustrated steps over to the nearest porthole. She didn’t appreciate the sight gathered below her: one swamppunk otter was bad enough, but a romp of them?

One of the otters drifted past on her back, aggressively carefree, her tenderly-patched accordion giving forth the deep, billowing rhythm of bog country hydeco from atop her belly. One of her two friends accompanied her on a bamboo flute, paddling flat on her belly with her hind paws, proudly presenting her Blank Fur patch on the back of her studded vest as she passed. The third otter chased after a playful water bug as it skittered across the surface of the water. It was, unsurprisingly, not on a leash.

The hydeco melody was interrupted by a series of distant, echoing pops. They seemed to stem from over by the riverbank, a half mile away, in the same direction as the swamppunks seemed to be heading. Dapplehide grumbled as she grabbed her phone and scrolled through the contacts, huffing in frustration. She honestly didn’t understand why sodium pellet watercrackers could be illegal to purchase in town, but perfectly legal to set off in the middle of the afternoon. Her call went to voicemail.

“Remi,” she growled into the phone. “I’m calling about Birchcomber.” She snorted. “Again.”  
—  
You typically needed a permit for a flotilla, Sandburrs thought. How many boats in a flotilla? And does a beaver with five shrews on its back count as a canoe?

Aldermammal Mooneel stepped up next to him without a word and took in the cacophonous, semi-aquatic scene, as a chaotic assortment of mammals came and went on the Birchcomber gangplank. He spotted maybe two dozen members of the Bowmusk clan scattered along the railing, one of whom had stationed themselves at the entrance with a pawheld tally counter; Lois had apparently made efforts to keep the Birchcomber from exceeding its maximum passenger load. Maybe he could get them for serving alcohol without a license? A bat waddled by, arm-in-wing with a mongoose, both drinking tangerine Fang-Goo. That might not work, either.

“Did you know about this?” Sandburr muttered towards the otter.

“No,” Remi muttered back. “Unlike everyone else in the marsh, apparently.”

“Remi! Ned!” The nonplussed otter and pronghorn looked up to the railing above their heads, as Lois waved enthusiastically down at them. She seemed suspiciously welcoming. “You’re just in time! Come on up!,” she called, as she began to turn back inside. “No cover!”

Remi straightened his tie and set his jaw as he walked purposefully towards the entrance, with Ned in tow. A few of the members of BARC set their own jaws and adjusted their non-existent ties as he passed. Ned froze in place on the gangplank as a half-dozen otter shrews casually meandered between his legs and through the open door. The raccoon from Shake, Paddle and Roll moved out of both their ways as they stepped inside, just as they heard the familiar tap of paw on microphone.

“Thank you all for coming!” came Lois’ voices through the modest speakers. “It’s absolutely amazing that you all could come on such short notice.”

“Mr. Mooneel!” Judy said, as she waddled over to the aldermammal’s side. “Ned,” she nodded. The pronghorn nodded back.

“I don’t suppose you could clue us in, Ms. Hopps,” Remi remarked. “Our invitation must have gotten lost in the mail.”

“Oh, it was a word-of-mouth sort of deal,” Judy smiled. “See for yourself!” Judy gestured amicably, as the crowd quieted down enough for Lois to continue.

“One week! Thousands of shares!” Lois continued, as Remi and Ned stole a glance at one another. “I just want to introduce some of the early adopters who’ve been here from the beginning,” as she gestured with one paw towards a mixed group of hip-looking otters and canids. “Stitchin’ Bitches!” Lois called, as the pack of furry knit-wizards let out a supportive howl. “One hundred shares!” Lois marveled. “That’s two percent of total ownership!”

“Ownership?” Ned whispered down to Remi, who shifted his paws uncertainly. “By whom?”

“By everybody, really.” Nick explained as he joined them, passing Judy her cloudberry tea as he plucked another piece of fruit from his stash. “Blueberry?” he offered to the flummoxed pair. Ned turned away, his eyes settling on a band of the youngest Bowmusks as they congregated in the pup literature section, hunched over a copy of _And Tango Makes Three Hundred_. Further away from the clamor, one of the pre-teen rabbits had actually sequestered herself in a corner, as she rapturously absorbed the contents of _Dr. Tatiana’s Mating Advice for All Creation_. She didn’t realize it yet, but its description of flatworms would soon inspire a life-long love affair with sword fighting.

“BARC! Fifty shares!” Lois continued. Somewhere behind him, Remi heard an accordion play a little celebratory ditty.

“I’m sorry you missed out,” Judy smiled, hugging Nick’s hip close and glancing apologetically to the aldermammal. “You could have had a stake in an amazing place.” The group parted to make way for an excited platypus in a _Steven Unicorn_ t-shirt, as she made her way over to Terry at the register; the platypus gripped the half-off volumes of the graphic novel _Sage_ , her eyes looking as if she’d struck gold.

“I can’t imagine it will make community meetings any simpler, though,” Nick mused regretfully, as Remi wondered darkly if the ZPD accepted shipments of fish heads. “I heard the kids from BARC have some really interesting ideas for affordable public housing,” he continued, as Sandburrs’ glasses began to flash with Zoogle searches for _community stock ownership plans - legality_? Also, _housing prices savannah country_. “Lois had mammals buying shares from every district in the city.”

“And Bunnyburrow!” Judy pointed out. “I had at least a dozen siblings who wanted in on this. Let alone Mom and Dad.” Ten shares was all it took to qualify for free shipping to anywhere in the Tri-Burrow area; she and Nick wished that they could have contributed more, but one half of one percent ownership was nothing to sneeze at.

“A hundred thousand bucks in a week,” Nick said in wonder. “That’s a lot of open mics.”

“AND THE BOWMUSKS!” Lois yelled, to wild applause. “AT FIVE HUNDRED SHARES! FOR PLURALITY OWNERSHIP!” A cheer came up from all around the ship, from bargain basement to the antiquarian cabinet. “MY REPLACEMENT! THE NEW FACES OF BIRCHCOMBER!” To one side, twenty Bowmusk siblings chucked pawfuls of watercrackers off the railing into the canal. Ten feet behind them, in his favorite Lay-Z-Bones, Judy couldn’t even hear a pinniped as he began to snore.

“You gotta watch out for those rabbit families.” Nick shook his head as he placed a paw on Mooneel’s shoulder; the otter’s fur felt cold, like chainmaille. “Take it from me.”


	11. Chapter 11

“Oh, it’s _fascinating_ ,” Lois told the captivated camel behind the counter. “All about the development of Marshland hydrology and how it shaped the greater political culture: _Canal of Shadows: Eadweard Muskbridge and the Technological Wild Wet_ ,” she repeated, as the hyena behind her made a mental note. “By Rebecca Soilnut, the same author who just wrote _Mammals Explain Things to Me_ ,” she added helpfully. “My word, that otter’s got _range_.”

Judy had never seen another mammal give Nick such a run for his money; Lois really did know everybody. They’d spent one afternoon in The Thread, and they’d already run into a cape buffalo that she’d helped through law school, a passerine refugee family that Lois had taken under her wings when Ellen was still a cub, and an eye-patched platypus whom she’d last seen captaining a salmon shuttle barge in the Gulf of Antlerka.

“Oh, it’s always good to visit my old paddling ground,” Mrs. Birchheart said, as she bid adieu to the camel and rejoined Nick and Judy as they meandered towards the end of the market. “It’s been years since I had this much time to myself. I feel…” She calculated. “About one hundred tonnes lighter.”

“I’m surprised you still remember how to walk,” Nick remarked, not dishonestly. 

“It does feel a little inefficient,” Lois admitted.

“Any idea for your next adventure?” Judy asked. As they approached Nooks, she drew forth the sandwich bag from her back pocket, where she’d stashed the shrew-sized copy of _After Mammal: A Zoology of the Future_. She couldn’t quite tell without a magnifying glass, but the illustrations looked positively _amazing_.

“Oh, of course,” Lois assured her. “I’ve been talking to the New Zooland Marine Volcano Observatory,” she explained offhandedly, as Nick and Judy’s began to reevaluate their comparably modest ambitions. “They said they could really use a volunteer librarian who can double as a deck mechanic in a pinch.”

Nick shook his head in unvarnished respect for the senior spitwater. “I’d expect nothing less,” he said. Amongst the many perks of Birchcomber stock ownership, Ellen had finally inveighed upon her mother to tell her stories so that other mammals could properly appreciate them; Ellen had made plans to interview Lois over MuzzleTime at least once a week for the next year, and then to pass them on to the community like little bite-sized memoirs. Nick especially looked forward to the story of how Lois had fought off a band of panda pirates in the Malchitin Strait - by making them all paddlecakes.

“Actually,” Lois began, drawing the group to one side, as she reached into her delightful, woven-seashell pawbag. “I do have something you might not expect,” she said, as her tattered copy of _Zootopian Practical Navigator_ emerged. Nick had to blink a few times before he regained the presence of mind to protest.

“Lois,” he mustered. “I can’t possibly…”

Lois shoved the book into Nick’s paws with conviction. “You can,” she assured him. “Absolutely.”

“Are you sure?” Judy interjected, trying to buy Nick more time as he struggled to compose himself. “It’s been with you for so long.”

“I travel light,” Lois said, with a gleeful bark, drawing the bemused attention of a dozen meandering bookworms from all around her; an otter like her would never be lacking for new strangers to charm and beguile. “Besides…” Lois announced with happy finality, laying one paw on each of Nick and Judy’s cheeks:

“Memories come free.”

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks again, everybody! For better or for worse, I can't say when I'll next have time to put together another full-blown installment in this series, because real life is about to demand a lot more of my time. :) But rest assured that it'll be on my mind.
> 
> Until then: references! Enjoy!: [goo.gl/83Y0kB].


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